


Our Own Greater Good

by Writerboy (Hobbitrocious)



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Angst, Brain Damage, Brain Surgery, Community: shkinkmeme, Electroconvulsive Therapy, Gen, Horror, Lobotomy, Medical Procedures, Trepanation, Victorian, trepanning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 06:29:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8435140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hobbitrocious/pseuds/Writerboy
Summary: A short SHkinkmeme fill I'm bringing back especially for Halloween...Prompt was, "Trepanning. On Holmes. Horrific results. Angst all around."





	

**Author's Note:**

> This may be slightly graphic in the medical sense, but is less messy than would be realistic since I can't stand much of that.
> 
> Initially written for the LJ kinkmeme in 2010, the original post can be found at: http://community.livejournal.com/shkinkmeme/4996.html?thread=6161540#t6161540

It took a few tries, a bit of playing with the voltage, but Watson eventually found a current level sufficient to shock Holmes into unconsciousness. Now, with the tools sterilised and the surgical site clean, Watson prepared Holmes for the drill.  
  
Heavy leather straps secured Holmes to a table kept in the farthest back, least-used room of Watson's practise. The straps were just a precaution, as it was unlikely Holmes would wake anytime soon. Still, to be on the safe side, a rag and a bottle of chloroform also sat at the ready next to the tray of menacing tools.  
  
All the doors were locked, the lights ignited to replace what sunlight could not reach through the tightly drawn drapes, and the machine that had induced Holmes' unnatural slumber was shut off and tucked safely back into its corner.   
  
Watson pulled experimentally on a lever attached to a mechanism bolted to the side of the table. It did not budge; the vice steadying the detective's head in place held firm. The operation could begin.  
  
He felt along Holmes' skull to ensure he found the exact spot on Holmes' forehead he had designated earlier. Carefully, Watson made his incision across the location to clear the way for the trephine.  
  
Holding just enough skin away with his thumb and forefinger, Watson positioned the drill over Holmes. With steady hands, made steadier by perhaps a fuller than necessary glass of spirits sometime earlier, he set the drill's edge against bone and cranked it into downward movement. A fine dust flecked the seams of the surgical wound as Watson worked the trephine deeper, a coarse grinding sound grated against Watson's nerves.  
  
The end of the drill's journey seemed to take longer than it should have, and Watson added pressure as he went. Unexpectedly, Holmes' skull decided to give way a millimetre too soon, and the mere moment it took Watson to recover from hearing the dry _crack_ was just enough time to accidentally force the end of the drill into soft matter.  
  
Watson paled and drew the device out of  the hole in Holmes' head. He flinched when the limp body wracked once in spasm, obviously reacting to the intrusion of having a cold metal instrument driven into its very core.  
  
He shook the trephine over his palm until it spat out the inch-round disc it had chewed out of Holmes' skull. Miraculously, despite Watson's slip, Holmes was still breathing and not losing any more fluid than Watson accounted for when he planned for this procedure. Watson set the drill back on the tray, but took the rough bone amulet to the bookshelf, where he quickly locked it inside a small box.  
  
He rinsed his hands and came back to stand over the detective.  
  
In his unawareness Holmes looked peaceful, in a strange way, but the contrast of the open gash accused his blank expression of telling lies.  
  
Watson ignored this, focussed on the breathtaking sight of Holmes' exposed brain.  
  
Pulsating, milky pink, and very _alive_ ; Watson just had to run a fingertip across its surface. The warm mass throbbed steadily against his touch. It seemed the natural thing for Watson to devote a minute or two to keeping his finger there, touching Holmes' brain, feeling the direct connection with that mysterious thing that made Holmes tick. The very organ from which sprouted all his baffling deductions. The sum of his very thoughts.  
  
Out of his peripheral sight, Watson feared he then saw the most minute of twitches in Holmes' foot. Clearing his throat, Watson withdrew his finger from the surface of Holmes' brain and set to work.  
  


* * *

  
  
After Holmes' head was sewn up, Watson picked up the small, sealed glass jar into which he'd deposited the disconnected piece of Holmes' brain. He took it on his way to unlock the door to the next room, bringing it with him. Solemnly, not daring to let his emotions overcome him - or perhaps simply too numb to feel them - he handed the jar and its grim contents to the imposing man who had just finished a cup of tea by the fire.  
  
"Excellent work, Doctor Watson," said Lord Blackwood as he turned the jar in his hand, inspecting the dying lobe of cranial tissue with something akin to pride. "I promise this is the last you'll see of me."  
  
Tearing his eyes away from his new trinket, Blackwood rose, tucked the thing away with a sweep of his cape, and made his exit from the study. Through the open door, one of Blackwood's accompanying thugs shoved a rope-bound, blindfolded woman. She stumbled across the rug, and Watson rushed to catch her in his arms.  
  
Even for all her trembling, it was not she but Watson who began to sob aloud.  
  
"Oh, Mary, what they've made me do..."

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween! >:D


End file.
